


This Thing We Reinvented

by Tozette



Series: Soulmate AU Challenge Fics [7]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Orochimaru is smol and precious for most of this story, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Timeline What Timeline, anija no, everybody here is an awful person, hashirama is a dork, i don't understand the timeline between the warring clans and the second shinobi world war, wildly changing tone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 04:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9583655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tozette/pseuds/Tozette
Summary: Tobirama's soul mate is never a particular mystery. The name is a distinctive one, and it shows up just as he's diving behind cover in a gorge in the far north west of Wind country, right near the Earth border. The name isOrochimaruand it comes in the characters for 'big' and 'snake'; a completely unveiled reference to the eight headed dragon slain by Susano’o.One of the ninja he's been fighting blinks at the sudden bloom of writing across the back of his hand. "Did that just--""Yes," says Tobirama. He is not comfortable."Oh, wow. I've never seen that before. Um, congratulations."Tobirama pauses. "...thank you."This brief moment of camaraderie does not stop Tobirama killing him, but it is what makes him choose to interrogate the man's squad mate first. He's not a monster, after all. It's a lot easier to move on to the friendly ninja once he's already numbed himself to the shock.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the writing challenge I've imposed on myself over on tumblr. If you wanna check out what I'm up to, you can find the rules [over here on my personal blog](http://tozettewrites.tumblr.com/post/152004964326/soulmate-aus-writing-challenge-to-myself). The most important rule is probably that it hasn't been edited.

Tobirama's soul mate is never a particular mystery. The name is a distinctive one, and it shows up just as he's diving behind cover in a gorge in the far north west of Wind country, right near the Earth border. The name is _Orochimaru_ and it comes in the characters for 'big' and 'snake'; a completely unveiled reference to the eight headed dragon slain by Susano’o.

Tobirama looks at the writing in surprise. He's old for it - people tend to end up matched with those roughly around their age, although it's not unheard of.

One of the ninja he's been fighting blinks at the sudden bloom of writing across the back of his hand. "Did that just--"

"Yes," says Tobirama.

"Oh, wow. I've never seen that before. Um, congratulations."

Tobirama pauses. "...thank you."

This brief moment of camaraderie does not stop Tobirama killing him, but it is what makes him choose to interrogate the man's squad mate first.

He's not a monster, after all. It's a lot easier to move on to the friendly ninja once he's already numbed himself to the shock.

 _Anyway_.

* * *

He heads back to Konoha. He barely sees the bare slopes and loose dirt change to ever-larger trees as he crosses River. He’s too busy hoping somebody will know somebody who knows who this Orochimaru is. Hashirama, probably. His brother knows everyone.

"Huh," says Hashirama. "Who names their child for a murderous man-eating dragon?"

"Well. Ninja," suggests Tobirama.

"Well," says Hashirama. He doesn't continue though. "I don't know it. He might not be a Konoha nin, you know."

Tobirama doesn't like the idea, but he can't say it hasn't occurred to him.

"As long as he's not a Rock nin," mutters Tobirama.

"Ahh... Well, he is who he is. How are the Rock nin, since you mention them?"

Tobirama makes a disgusted noise, and then launches into a proper mission report. He should have led with it, really, but he's... he feels embarrassed to admit, but he's excited.

He looks through their records, though, digging into the files that they keep on anybody in the village. He finds the name, finally, in hospital records from some years back. His soulmate isn't, as he'd thought, some adult who has recently undergone some kind of trauma or big change, and nor is it a new arrival whose life in the village is now destined to put them in Tobirama's path.

It's a child, barely six, whose parents have died.

He guesses that's the kind of formative event that makes a kid fit to be Tobirama's soul mate.

Once he knows roughly who he's looking for, tracking him down turns out easier than Tobirama expected.

This is what he gets for paying insufficient attention to his own students' lives.

"Orochimaru?" Hiruzen repeats slowly, and he is obviously thinking of when the mark might have appeared, of where. His eyes narrow when he thinks, and he looks dangerous. It's strange, to see one's student all grown up. "...He didn't say anything."

Tobirama is tempted to point out that he probably would have told his _family_ , just as Tobirama did -- except that of course Orochimaru's family is all dead now.

Hiruzen gives him an address and a gentle warning - as though Tobirama doesn't know how it feels to be a child mourning a parent - and offers to facilitate an introduction. Tobirama is... still not quite sure how to proceed.

"No," he says finally. "It will be awkward either way; best to be awkward in private."

It always is when one part of a pair tracks the other down like this. This isn't going to stop Tobirama, of course, pretty much nothing will once he's set on a course, but it's worth noting.

When he goes to the address, he finds it empty. He supposes he knows exactly where a child recently orphaned might be spending most of his time, but he won’t check the grave site. Surely that, at least, is a place for privacy.

He hesitates. In the end, Tobirama does not leave a note.

* * *

When they do meet, it’s because Hashirama almost trips over a too-small child at the market.

The market is one of the busiest places Tobirama has ever encountered. Coming from a tightly-knit ninja clan it is overwhelming to step out and see the open-air marketplace in Konoha. The difference is staggering. Civilians and ninja alike come together to exchange and barter here, and there are strange smells, strange sounds, new things to see -- there are the cries of people hawking their wares, sticky-fingered children running past on errands, a huge and densely-furred Inuzuka dog being forcibly dragged away from the red-faced butcher...

It’s a safe but confusing place, and it’s little wonder a ditz like Hashirama gets caught up in the excitement.

Tobirama snatches his elbow before he can bowl the child over. For somebody called ‘the god of shinobi’, Hashirama is an incredible moron.

Hashirama jerks in his hold, then looks down -- and _down_. Hashirama is over six feet tall, and the child is both small and quiet. Cat-footed, too -- the child of ninja, not of civilians, Tobirama thinks. “Oh! I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking..." he pauses, then goes on: “Looking all the way down there. Hello. Do you have parents?”

“No, Hokage-sama,” says the child, all soft and flat, in a voice seems to vibrate along Tobirama’s nerves. The sound of him makes the blood thump in Tobirama‘s skull, makes his whole body turn toward him like a sunflower opening toward the east. “Excuse me.”

Oh. _Oh_. “Orochimaru..?” Tobirama says, taken aback. Beside him, he hears Hashirama make a surprised squeaking noise. _So graceful, Anija._

“Tobirama-sama,” says the child, blinking up at him. His eyes are big, huge and golden and shadowed beneath a spill of inky black hair.

He’s... kind of adorable, actually. The thought makes Tobirama very uncomfortable.

He knows six year olds are small, but are they _this_ small? Tsunade is not this small, he thinks, or maybe she just seems more robust. Orochimaru is white, not just pale, but _white_ , like his blood doesn’t even run red. He looks like he’s never seen the sun.

Hashirama is immediately plucking the bags from Tobirama’s arms. “You should help him look at him, he can’t carry all that home--”

“Yes, I can,” says Orochimaru. He is ignored.

“--tiny and obviously needs all the help he can--”

“No, I don’t,” says Orochimaru. Also ignored.

“Just let him,” murmurs Tobirama. 

Orochimaru makes a soft, put-upon noise, but he makes no effort to stop their ridiculous Hokage when he yanks the package of fish from Orochimaru’s hands and puts it in Tobirama’s.

He spins Tobirama around and gives him a push.

“I don’t live in that direction,” Orochimaru says, but Hashirama has disappeared into the crowd with a wave, determined to get out of the way. Tobirama can almost _hear_ the conversation he’s going to have with Mito after this.

“I know,” says Tobirama.

“...you don’t have to walk me,” Orochimaru says, looking uncertainly at the package in Tobirama’s hands.

“I know that, too. Was there anything else you needed to get, Orochimaru-kun?”

“...no,” he says, with a hesitation that Tobirama’s pretty sure means _yes, but I don’t want to get it with you hovering over my shoulder._

It’s an awkward walk.

* * *

 

If nothing else, Orochimaru turns out to be remarkably well house-trained for an abandoned six year old. The house is spotless, despite belonging to a child so young he needs a stool to reach the sink. There are books on the table, called things like _Intravenous Toxin Delivery Methods_ and _An Epistemological Treatise Concerning Auditory Genjutsu._

Tobirama keeps thinking back to Hashirama at eight, at ten. He is thinking _is this normal, I don’t think this is normal._

Eventually, though, Tobirama holds out his hand, showing off the bare back of it where Orochimaru’s name is written.

Orochimaru peers at it and, after a second, lifts one bare foot to show Tobirama his own name. His handwriting looks as sloppy and rushed as usual, workmanlike and legible but not at all attractive. It’s dark and large on the child’s small foot. The veins underneath show up against his too-pale skin. They look blue and spidery.

Just quietly, he’s sort of relieved that he’s not at all attracted to this small, too-serious child with his underdeveloped body and sharp but alien intellect.

He didn’t expect to find him attractive, exactly, but, well. _Soulmates_. Maybe that will change in a decade or so, but --

For now it’s a relief.

“It’ strange,” says Orochimaru.

“Yes,” agrees Tobirama. Fate has given him a whole person, and they need a lot more taking care of than he ever expected. It is very, very strange.

Orochimaru nods like this comment meets all his expectations, and then he makes tea without prompting. He and Tobirama drink it, and neither of them has a single thing to say.

It is, oddly, not that bad.

On the other hand, his soulmate is an orphaned six year old. Six is somehow even smaller and younger than he expected it might be. Tobirama resolves to visit frequently.

It’s easier than it sounds. Orochimaru is not a child who needs a lot of attention or looking after, which is lucky because Tobirama doesn’t have a lot of time. He comes by perhaps once or twice a week, should missions permit.

That first visit is not a fluke: Orochimaru always has a pot of tea, he is always reading something that far exceeds his age group’s expected developmental level and the house is always spotless. He cooks vegetables without prompting and even eats them, which makes him genuinely more responsible than Hashirama is about eighty per cent of the time.

“Is that normal?” Hashirama asks when Tobirama points this out, exasperated and weary. “I don’t think that’s normal. He sounds like an alien. No wonder you’re soulmates.”

Tobirama throws a cup of tea at his face. It’s only lukewarm, so it’s fine, no matter how much Hashirama whines.

“I wouldn’t say it’s normal,” Hiruzen says, when Hashirama eventually forces him to weigh in through the sheer pressure of his wobbling eyes, “but he’s really the least difficult of my students.” A pause. “I worry about him sometimes, but--”

And, yes. Tobirama can see that.

There are good reasons to worry about Orochimaru. He is deathly quiet, and he spends an inappropriate amount of time with his parents’ graves. He is dedicated to the ninja arts to a concerning degree, one Tobirama rarely even saw when his clan had no allies and felt the Uchiha breathing down their necks right next door.

There’s something wild and strange and driven about Orochimaru.

Regrettably, Tobirama doesn’t have enough time to dedicate much to knowing him better. He hopes these problems will unravel as Orochimaru gets older, and in the mean time he tries hard to get to know him in the time he has.

At first he brings him sweet things, but when he learns better he brings books and stories from other countries, news of other villages. He tells him about any bizarre or interesting techniques he encounters. Rarely does he censor himself, because Orochimaru might be a child but he’s also a ninja. He doesn’t need coddling. He won’t be better off if he’s sheltered from the sorts of things ninja do to one another.

Besides, Orochimaru never flinches. The worse the things Tobirama tells him sound, the more he seems to relax, seems to trust that he’s not being lied to.

(He is perhaps not the best adjusted child Tobirama has encountered, which is probably why he has Tobirama’s name signed on his foot, and not, say, the name of a gentle civilian.)

Tobirama brings him a steel earring shaped like a tomoe which he recovers from a ninja clan in the far north of Lightning. He’s unsurprised to find that Orochimaru is more interested in this than any game or sweet. It looks strange on him, too big for his small person. He might grow into it, eventually, and at least it’s no more dangerous for a young ninja than Orochimaru’s long hair.

When he‘s ten, Orochimaru asks: “Will you be Hokage when Hashirama-sama is killed?”

He phrases it just like that, too: direct, on the edge of being rude. He doesn’t say _when he retires_ or _if something happens to him_ , doesn’t politely deflect from the possibility. Orochimaru is extremely aware of death as a phenomenon, and he seems determined to embrace it with his his teeth bared.

Orochimaru is also fond of questions that Tobirama doesn’t like answering. He has a knack for them, some uncanny sense of when he should ask and how hard he should press. Tobirama, for all his relentless, cool-headed pragmatism, can be quite weak in the face of those questions. Orochimaru looks guileless, all big golden eyes and with his head tipped to one side.

“I suppose,” says Tobirama slowly. He already gets most of what he wants for the village done, primarily by telling Hashirama it needs to be done and then standing over him with a stick until it happens. Ideally, Nidaime Hokage should be an Uchiha -- for political reasons, if not for sensible practical ones -- but he doesn’t see any of them as being a practical choice.

Madara alone had the clarity and power for it, and he was -- no. Madara would have been a terrible Hokage. Power isn’t everything.

“Hm,” says Orochimaru, and there is no further comment from him on the topic. Once he’s dragged the answer out of Tobirama he seems content.

It’s almost prophetic in a way, because it’s not long after that discussion that Tobirama’s foolish, too-noble brother is killed in a skirmish. It’s not even open war, just a mission gone sour between villages. Hashirama shouldn’t even have been on it, given that he’s the village leader, but he always did want to lead from the front.

So Hashirama dies with blood on his mouth, glazed eyes, a half-smile and an apology like a murmur on the breeze.

Tobirama wants to beat his stupid face in. _Anija, no._

Mito is inconsolable -- and he means that literally. She cannot be consoled. Nothing helps her. Nothing touches her in her grief. She is distant at best. Although Tobirama is sure she could be counted upon to fight in an emergency, he quietly moves her off the duty roster. She must notice -- at least, he _hopes_ she notices -- but she never says anything.

And so Hashirama leaves Tobirama with a lot of work and an ugly hat.

Hiruzen is still much too young, even though Tobirama is convinced he will do an excellent job once he’s ready for it. Tobirama takes up the mantle and has abruptly even less time than he used to.

He is perhaps the only Hokage Konoha will ever have who executes his work efficiently and mechanically. Systems are built around Tobirama, and his influence will be felt for generations. He thinks it’s idiotic to carve his face into the mountainside, but he will allow that he can’t leave Hashirama’s stupid head all alone up there. That would be worse.

Orochimaru comes to visit him now -- because Tobirama has almost no time, and also because, evidently, he worries.

This surprises Tobirama to learn and it’s a lot more obvious from his behaviour than from his expressions or comments. From his viewpoint, Orochimaru seems prone to neither anxiety nor attachment. He’s strange and wild and odd, endearing but frequently unreadable, and hardly a child at all.

“Of course he worries,” sighs Hiruzen, although he never quite explains himself to Tobirama.

Still, it’s not terribly unusual to get into his office and find short helpful summaries of his unclassified paperwork stuck to their fronts or, less helpfully, a brief t _his standstill is boring and pointless for us both_ on a note stuck to a diplomatic missive from Kumo.

Sometimes Orochimaru actually visits for work, which is less common. Hiruzen‘s team only has to show up to get used to giving reports verbally and succinctly -- otherwise, he‘d leave that to Hiruzen. At least his old student knows how to give a report. Orochimaru does, too, Tobirama thinks, but he usually leaves his teammates to dig their own holes and lie in them.

Most of the time, if they’re coming as a team, he can hear them coming down the hall.

“You should make him an o-bento like a good housew-- _ow_ , bastard, what the hell, why are you _always_ so pissy--”

Jiraiya is an annoying brat, but Hiruzen says Tobirama is biased.

Hiruzen thinks it’s funny and Tsunade... mostly tries to pretend it’s not happening.

Orochimaru never once brings him food, though, which is actually kind of a pity. He’s a much better cook than Tobirama.

But things move on, as they’re wont to do. A Suna-nin assassinates the Fire Daimyou’s eldest son for reasons that remain completely opaque to Tobirama.

The First Shinobi World War crashes down around Tobirama in the form of broken supply lines and urgent reports. The fragile peace between shinobi villages falls away completely and hostilities bloom across the continent. If he closes his eyes, he can see them, bursting bright red across the map in his mind’s eye. Whole squads are slaughtered.

Casualties skyrocket even as demand for ninja services soars. Civilians are terrified, and more of them than any ninja village can actually afford to lose just pack up and leave, fleeing to the islands east or across the ice in the far north. The loss of civilians makes supplies more expensive, and supply lines make perfect ambush points.

Tobirama finds himself trying to lead from the front more often than not, unable to keep up with the demand for split-second judgements.

He almost never sees Orochimaru, because Tobirama is at the front and, _quite by design_ , Hiruzen’s kids are at the back. If they must send children to war, Tobirama is doing his level best to make sure they’re there as medics’ aides, as runners, as supply officers.

It’s not too much, he thinks, to ask that nobody under twelve die this time.

(But of course it is too much to ask. Death comes, breathing down their necks, fierce and indiscriminate. It doesn’t matter how many adult ninja you throw at a war; it’s never enough to appease it. It is always hungry.)

Their run in with the Kinkaku Force comes as a surprise, although it really shouldn’t. Hiruzen was meant to be the diversion, but Tobirama has grand plans for him -- and no intention of seeing his student die on the front lines if he can help it anyway.

 _Tell him I’m sorry, tell him I meant to come back_ , is right on the tip of his tongue, but in the end, Tobirama doesn’t bother. He knows Orochimaru. Orochimaru will understand, intellectually. It will make perfect sense to him. And he’ll try to rationalise it as best as he can, and in the end all the duty and heroics in the world will be cold comfort.

It doesn’t stop him. He doesn’t have it in him to leave it for somebody else.

Instead Tobirama tells Hiruzen that he gets the ugly hat and he thankless pile of work and he goes to die. He is a ninja and he is their leader and this is his job.

It’s a long, awful day.

* * *

And then Tobirama wakes up, which is sort of a surprise.

He discovers he can't move his limbs and that he seems to be strapped to a metal slab in a windowless room that smells like... well, like rust and sweet decay, if he’s being generous and diplomatic. If he’s not, it smells like old blood, left wet, in a place that hasn’t seen daylight in years.

When his eyes adjust to the halogen lights overhead, he can see a great deal of repurposed medical equipment from all sorts of eras. Some of the machines have been gutted, their parts jammed into fankensteinian beeping... things.

The walls have writing on them, long jagged scribbling equations and designs and frenzied seal work, some of which shows up again on Tobirama's skin and on the paper tying him to the slab. It’s a mess.

He feels hungover.

The last thing he remembers is --

It's jumbled. Danzo and Hiruzen, stubborn and afraid. He remembers... Kinkaku, yes. Cloud-nin. He squints at the dirty ceiling, too low, with its ugly blood spatter around the light fixture. Hiruzen will make a good Hokage, surely--

He remembers fighting Hiruzen, though. His head hurts when he tries to think about it.

"Stay still," recommends a familiar voice, soft and raspy. "And try not to think of anything that happened when you were dead. Those memories shouldn't last for long, but they're not good for you."

The voice is one he remembers clearly. It rings like a gong in his head and in his veins, although the actual sound is different. It's different, older, with strange qualities he doesn't recall. The rhythm and tone are identical, though.

"Orochimaru," he says. His voice comes out raw but steady.

"Oh? You know me.” He sounds surprised, but not... not unhappy, but not happy either. He speaks in a teasing, condescending rasp. He’s much older, that much is obvious, and Tobirama feels like a lot of time has passed.

He’s not sure he should trust that voice. A lot can happen to a ninja over time. He wishes he could get a line of sight.

“How many fingers?"

Tobirama opens his mouth to point out that he's not holding any up, that Tobirama cannot move and cannot see him, but then there's a touch to his shoulder. The fingertips are larger than they should be, by memory, but Tobirama supposes he's a grown man now, an adult -- although _how_ he knows is confusing and makes his head feel strange.

He blinks, moves his eyes. He feels like every shift of his gaze makes electricity pop inside his skull. It's not a good feeling. He squeezes his eyes shut.

The touch is clear. One, two, three fingers drop against his skin in quick succession. "Three," he says obediently.

“Hmm,” says Orochimaru, soft, calculating, considering. He taps his fingers gently up Tobirama’s neck. They’re cold.

There are other answers then: “Squeeze my hand. Harder. Good,” and “Is this hot or cold?” and “Open our eyes, Tobirama-sama, what does this say?” He says _Tobirama-sama_ like it’s an in-joke, in a tone of quiet hilarity.

When he finally sees him, Orochimaru is older than he expects, but right on the heels of that thought is the idea that it's actually very hard to guess his age.

His skin is smooth, pale, still untouched by sunlight. His hair isn't greying around the edges, not even at the very roots. His hands are steady and fine-boned, with exactly the kind of calluses any ninja gets. There is no sign of weariness on his face.

He looks no older than twenty five, maybe twenty eight. But there’s a heaviness to his gaze that makes Tobirama want to tack on another decade, two decades, more and more. He licks his lips.

“You don’t look old,” he says slowly.

Orochimaru pauses and tilts his head, spilling his long hair sideways. “Perhaps now isn’t the time to stress over such details,” he suggests, more delicately than Tobirama expects of him.

Tobirama infers that this topic is going to make one of them very uncomfortable. He’s not sure which one of them yet, and Orochimaru gives him no clues. He drops it.

"I was dead," he prompts. It might hurt his head but he knows that much at least. He can remember strange bits and pieces past then: confusion, fighting, moving under another's power. Strange.

"Yes. My research has allowed me to move spirits between bodies; yours has allowed me to draw spirits from the afterlife."

That's... well.

No wonder the room smells so bad.

Orochimaru's hair brushes over Tobirama's ribs when he carefully peels the seals from his arms, his legs, his belly. It's very long now, dark and slippery.

When Tobirama sits up, he realises he is still inches taller. Orochimaru looks lost here. His clothes and skin are clean, but the floor is stained and the walls are a wreck. He can see the lingering brush strokes of a temper tantrum in the far corner, seals scribbled out.

"Ah. Welcome back," he says, dipping his head toward Tobirama. His eyes are heavy lidded.

Tobirama tugs Orochimaru’s head in, lets it rest against his shoulder. He feels the body relax, muscles loosen, breath come out soft and shaky.

He can see, if he looks down past the sweep of Orochimaru’s yukata, the inky sweep of his own handwriting trailing out from beneath his shoe, across the arch of his foot. It’s still there, still dark and stark and readable.

There's probably going to be time later for hard questions, like where this lab is, why Orochimaru clearly has almost no funding, who has been sacrificed for this greater good -- Tobirama's impure world reincarnation, at least, requires a human death for a human life, and he very much doubts Orochimaru started out experimenting on his soul mate.

But for now he lets him lean on him. He flexes his fingers, long and strong and familiar. There‘s still writing there, too. “Thank you,” he says slowly. “It’s good to return.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1) tobirama/orochimaru request from somebody on anon over on tumblr
> 
> 2) if you don’t think Orochimaru would resurrect his soulmate as a giant fuck you to death, idek what to tell u buddy
> 
> 3) If there was something you particularly liked, let me know in a comment. :)


End file.
